AWA Studios is the newest comic book publisher to arrive on the market, bringing an impressive plan for a brand new superhero shared universe – with room room for all manner of stories and storytellers, as well. Standing for Artists, Writers, and Artisans, the company is headed by the former leadership of Marvel Comics: CEO Bill Jemas, Marvel’s chief operating officer and publisher from 2000 to ’04, and its chief creative officer Axel Alonso, who acted as Marvel’s editor-in-chief from 2011 to 2018 after a decade as executive editor.
AWA’s central thrust revolves around the imprint dubbed Upshot, with planned stories ranging from the traditional superheroes to action-adventure and horror, geared towards a variety of audiences. The flagship title in this Upshot effort is a six-issue miniseries called The Resistance; releasing its first issue on March 18th, 2020. Written by J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Mike Deodato (the creative team behind The Amazing Spider-Man during Axel’s tenure at Marvel), it tells the story of a disease that suddenly infects humanity, claiming 400 million people worldwide within a month... before suddenly stopping. The fantasy comes from the side-effect: of the 5% of infected individuals who survive, roughly 20 million people in total, many begin to manifest superpowers, and a traumatized world now needs to contend with them, as well as their near-extinction.
It’s an intriguing premise for AWA Studios’ new shared universe – and the perfect reason for Screen Rant to speak with Axel Alonso about what it all means, from the Creative Council leading this new universe's creation, to the first book setting it in motion: The Resistance. Readers can find the full interview below:
Screen Rant: Can you explain the rationale for launching the "Upshot" imprint, instead of using the blanket AWA name up front? Are there going to be other imprints planned alongside it?
Axel Alonso: Upshot is our core imprint, focused on producing entertaining comics for comic-lovers, teenaged and above. There will be other imprints with very different creative goals and mission statements coming in the future.
You aren't making all of the story calls yourself, but have assembled a Creative Council. How did this group come into being, and how are they changing the way these stories are shaped?
I thought it made sense to have a core group of creators lay down the foundation for the shared universe, with Joe Straczynski at the center, because there is no one better at laying down the foundation for a new universe than him. From Babylon 5 to Rising Stars to Midnight Nation to Sense8, with mind-bending re-imaginings of Squadron Supreme, Spider-Man and Thor along the way, Joe is without peer when it comes to world-building.
Why a Creative Council? As Editor-in-Chief at Marvel, I found the editorial summits, where writers and editors did macro story-planning, to be very helpful in planning intricate stories that overlapped multiple characters, so I thought, why not do that here? AWA’s Creative Council is six creators who’ve conquered comics and other media: film, TV, animation, video games, novels, YA lit. They’re six distinct voices, and none of them are tourists. They love this medium.
I understand that the so-called Axel-verse follows closer to the model of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, if you will, with multiple stories that can piggyback off one another, than the Marvel Comics model, where big crossover events bring characters together. Is there still a master storyline plotted out somewhere -- and, if so, how far into the future does it extend?
There is a master story playing out in the background of “The Resistance” that will reveal itself over time. That said, while there will be clear connectivity between our series and characters, we went out of our way to avoid boxing in our creators. “The Resistance” provides an easy on-ramp for readers to understand our universe, a simple origin story that allows for the creation of diverse superhuman characters that span the globe, but also for creators to participate in that universe. We want writers and artists to have maximum creative freedom and the ability to take advantage of the benefits of shared universe, which allows for well-timed guest stars, team-ups and crossovers.
Why concentrate on launching Upshot with a collection of miniseries at first? Is there a plan for any monthly releases?
Our plan is to publish limited series, each of which tells a complete story arc that brings one huge story to a close, with a few loose threads to be played with later. Think of it as a “season one” that sets up subsequent seasons. Joe Straczynski has already started writing the second arc of The Resistance; his spinoff, Moths, is fully written and mostly illustrated; and other creators are well underway with their own shared universe stories. The same is true for Year Zero – arc one is completely finished, Ben Percy has already written the second arc, and three issues are drawn.
There are several advantages to this plan: retailers get to sell a new issue-one every few months, a steady flow of trade paperbacks supports the monthlies, and freed from the monthly grind, we can avoid fill-in artists and schedule our launches to avoid late ships; we won’t solicit a series until we are absolutely sure every issue will ship on time.
Launching alongside the debut of The Resistance on March 18th comes a whole host of additional miniseries: Archangel 8, following the eighth archangel from the Biblical Apocrypha who wages a Punisher-esque war on Earth; Red Border, about a young, middle-class Mexican couple that flees from the Juarez Cartel and ends up in a house of horrors in Texas; and Hotell, a Twilight Zone-esque tale that centers on a small hotel on Route 66 that mysteriously appears only to those in desperation. Following this initial line-up are two additional titles that debut in April and May, respectively: Year Zero, which tells the worldwide story of the zombie apocalypse, and Old Haunts, a Mafia yarn that sees three made men on the brink of retirement get assaulted by the ghosts of their past.
The Resistance #1 – and the rest of AWA Studios’s Upshot imprint – launches on Wednesday, March 18th, 2020.
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